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Use Social Media to Improve Your Online Presence
presented by EdCopy
Are you a teacher looking to improve your online presence? While the thought of putting yourself out there may seem daunting, it is what it is, your online profile is important. Most teachers will agree that making an impact these days can be hard. However, if you have a strong online presence, then you are one jump ahead of the breadline. For more information on how to improve your online presence as a teacher, check out this post.
Why do you need an online presence?
An online presence is vital for any business. Whether you’re starting a new business or already have an established one, building an online presence is something that’s important, and it’s something you should think about from the beginning. Here’s why:
Most consumers are going online to make their purchasing decisions.
A solid online presence will help build your brand for business.
It builds your professional reputation.
1) More and more consumers are getting their first exposure to a product on the internet, and they are getting to know and like the product on their own. This means that your online presence will have a huge impact on your brand and your sales, therefore making it one of the top priorities to create an online presence: better read, marketing your education business to create more awareness around you and what you offer.
2) Besides building a solid brand, you also need to use your online presence to help build your business. While people directly engage with other people on the internet, organizations and businesses also do it. Building an online presence has many advantages for building a brand and a business. Whether this is simply to build a digital presence or to reach potential customers that are not actively using your website, building an online presence can help you increase brand awareness and also more sales.
3) Whether or not you are teaching, your professional reputation is important. That reputation can be negatively affected when interacting with clients on the internet. Since you have to put yourself out there as a teacher online to build your professional reputation, the best way is to take part with a wide range of different upcoming events and other opportunities to expand your audience and impact.
The internet is full of opportunities for business owners, but it’s also a crowded place. If you want your company to stand out, you have to work hard to make your online presence as strong as possible.
How can you use social media to help you improve your online presence?
Social media is a great way to build your brand and connect with your audience. Social media gives you a great way to interact with your audience, promote your products and services, and build your business.
It can be hard for teachers to connect the dots about social media. This often leads teachers to neglect social media altogether as they focus more on their teaching material. However, social media is an important strategy to consider. Teachers have a unique opportunity when it comes to social media. The benefit of taking advantage of social media is that it allows you to engage your career experiences in meaningful ways. Make time to tell your audience that they can take action on your posts, whether they are about classroom activities, enrichment ideas, school relevance, or community events. Do this consistently and you have already established a course set toward positive relationships.
I am a teacher and I have always loved social media. It is a great way to connect with people and even share my love of teaching. But I never really knew how to use social media as a marketing tool or how to grow my audience. When I started studying content marketing and copywriting, light bulbs started going off. Now I know I can build my brand and make money using social media. Social media gives you the opportunity to engage with people in your target audience, share your ideas, and spread your message. It also helps build your brand as a teacher and an expert in your field.
Teachers also have an opportunity to strengthen their brand through collaborations. At a time when other teachers are establishing norms that reek of a lack of collaboration, you have an opportunity to actively encourage the pooling of resources and be a positive role model. Collaboration is another positive lesson that you can teach your students. It allows you to provide solutions to common classroom problems and collect data that can feed into your lesson plans. Using social media tools, you can determine which lesson activities and lesson plans are needed and then work on creating them together.
After you share lessons via social media, make sure you then email or phone your target audience to let them know how you can help them with what you've been up to.
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ARE YOU MAKING THESE SOCIAL MARKETING MISTAKES?
In a different post, there is a list of five common social marketing mistakes and what to do about them.
Mistake #1:
You don't know who you're talking to.
The fix:
You should define and target a specific audience; talk directly to them.
Mistake #2:
You don't have a plan.
The fix:
Instead of trying to manage your social media presence on the fly, try making or taking a specific plan and calendar for sourcing and distributing media content every day.
Mistake #3:
You don't have the right tools.
The fix:
Take advantage of software that lets you schedule content to post automatically and manage different social media profiles from one screen.
Mistake #4:
You run out of content ideas because you don't know what you've got.
The fix:
Try sticking to content related to your subject of teaching and see if you don't get better results. But don't make the mistake of trying to appear more authoritative by pretending to know what you don't know.
Mistake #5:
You're trying to do it alone.
The fix:
Pool your resources with others who are doing good work.
Now, if you're a social marketing beginner, I can almost guarantee you're already making some of these mistakes.
I remember when I was first starting out trying to be more active on social media channels. Everyone else made it look so easy. Seems like many people, including some teachers I know, had built an engaged a ship of followers with no problems.
As for me, I was always getting tripped up by how much work goes into using social media to make a greater impact educational impact. I found that marketing yourself on social media can be time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes even painful.
I want to help you ease some of the same struggles I've experienced, and that's why I'm bringing you this featured download, a social marketing checklist for teachers...
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What are the top social media sites for teachers?
With so many social media sites for teachers, it's hard to choose which one to focus your efforts on. Here are a few of the top social media sites for teachers doing business, based on their popularity and how they can be used:
Twitter
Facebook/Instagram
LinkedIn
YouTube
1) Twitter is a great way to connect with teachers all over the world. Besides education-related discussions, you can find everywhere from school news and events, to the latest headlines from the many blogs written by teachers. For business, the platform is also relatively time and cost-effective, making it an incredible tool for connecting with fellow educators. Many teachers also use Twitter, so it would be a great platform to establish a presence and reputation online.
2) One of the more popular social media sites for teachers, Facebook is not necessarily great if you’re a teacher who doesn't want to tolerate a learning curve. If you’re looking to better connect with fellow educators, then this is a good online place to start. With over two billion monthly active users, teachers have access to valuable audiences. Facebook, Inc. is the parent company of the Instagram platform, and they integrate relatively extensively, which makes it a great place to find and reach specific audiences.
3) Considering LinkedIn as an online platform for teachers in business is a good idea. If you're looking to grow your professional network, it is worth giving it a chance. The major drawback (which you might actually consider an advantage) is that it caters more so to a career-centric audience, which limits your content options. Still, teachers can promote education-related solutions so if your niche or subject relates to professional needs and interests, this could be a great platform to learn more about. There are over 4,500 paid professional networking opportunities to help you land your dream clients and collaborators as a teacher with an education business!
4) YouTube: While you can’t really do much on YouTube, you can still use the platform to record and upload videos related to what you want to teach or what you offer. And today, video goes a long way, so the platform, if you do the work required, has great potential and returns.
How can you grow your following and community on these sites?
You can grow your following and community on these sites by using the following two guidelines:
Create and distribute quality content.
Help people.
1) Create and distribute quality content: If you want people to come back to your social platforms or blog, they have to be returning for the content you put out. So, the most important thing you can do is create high quality content. Not only does it build your authority if people remember your name and what you're about, but it also helps to attract the right people to your community by creating an experience that will resonate with them in the long run.
Write about: What do you teach? What do you believe? What is your philosophy? What does your program look like? Write about them well. Think about what will resonate with people and why. The last thing you want to do is write the same thing that everyone else has already written. That approach gets old quick. Besides that, focus on things that will speak to your audience. Think about things that will speak to this brother or that sister. What do they love? What is their pain point? What do they want? Those are the questions you will have to ask yourself before you can develop a content strategy that will appeal to your intended audience.
But don’t get discouraged. I’ve been in this business for about 10 years+, and in all of that time, I'm just recently locking in a well-developed, consistent content strategy. So, if you are a teacher who is new to social marketing and have just been dabbling in it, then focus on the little things, and slowly build your returns from your content. Over time, you will develop a strategy that is sustainable.
2) Help people: The best business is the one who helps people solve their problems. Normally, people are more likely to do business with someone they like and trust. When you help others, you want to make sure you are being completely honest. Ideally, offer some kind of unique value in exchange for them doing business with you. You might give out a percentage of your gross earnings to benefit students who attend one of my virtual teacher seminars or conferences.
Modeling your online presence after instructional design principles can help teachers make a big impact. This is why many teachers are already suited to develop their online presence. However, the thought of putting yourself out there may seem daunting.
Remember: it's worth the time and effort. Having a strong online presence is important for teachers these days. They will say that making an impact these days can be hard, but if you have a strong, positive online presence, then you are one step ahead of the rest.
To help yourself gain more clarity regarding social marketing, grab the featured download by tapping the button below.
